Films like Shaolin Mantis.
Shaolin Mantis (1978) reads as Sombre, breathless, extreme kung-fu / shaw-brothers, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured. Every film below is ranked by distance across the same twelve hand-scored axes — with what it keeps, and where it walks away. Not a genre dump.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the grounded, familiar shape and the bone-dry seriousness — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the grounded, familiar shape and the bone-dry seriousness — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
Keeps the cold, bleak undertow and the grounded, familiar shape — one of the nearest reads in the catalogue.
These are Shaolin Mantis’s neighbours — where are yours?
Rate five posters and the same twelve axes read you — then tonight’s pick comes from your own centre of taste.
Find my film for tonight — 60 sec →